Thursday, 28 November 2013

Very Vivian - 10 Days Away From Home

That's how long Vivian ended up spending away from her own bed while I was recovering from my surgery. She spent a full week at Grandma's house and she did SO WELL. She's been really awesome through the whole surgery process - but she's starting to get a little sick of the whole thing. She asks me every day - "Mommy, you still sick?" The other day the conversation was, "Mommy, you still sick? You still have owies?" "Yeah, honey. Mommy's still sick." "Yeah, you go to the doctor tomorrow. He'll make you better." She's also totally figured out that Mommy can't pick her up, so if she doesn't want to do something, there isn't really much I can do about it. So that's been fun.

But anyway - her time away.

I take Vivian to my mom's place basically every Sunday. I get to hang out with my mom, Vivian gets to hang out with L, and I get out of having to cook supper. Great news all around. So she's super comfortable there, and since my mom does foster care, there's an extra toddler bed that Vivian can sleep in. This definitely made things easier. I didn't want to send too many things along with her, but I did make sure to send her quilt that she sleeps with every night, along with a couple of stuffed animals that she really likes. My mom helped by sticking some pictures of Vivian and I together by her bed so she could say goodnight to me. She called me on the phone almost every night, which really helped us both. It broke my heart to hear her ask about coming home, but I knew she was having fun and was doing okay. My mom also kept her super busy - she had dance lessons and skating lessons, and was going to a daycare the whole week. Keeping her busy and involved in new things definitely helped to keep the tears away. She also had a special treat to help her get through the week - Froot Loops. This kid is crazy for Froot Loops, and I don't buy them often because she wants to eat the whole box. But my mom let her have them as much as she wanted, so that was her "special thing" for the week.

When I went back to mom's to see her (instead of bringing her home right away I stayed at my mom's with her for a weekend first to ease myself back into it) I brought her a present for being so good while mommy was sick. L was awesome with her and was really good about sharing his toys so I brought him a present too. It took a few tries to get her to understand about my "owies", and it was hard to get comfortable to snuggle with her, but eventually we got settled.

Here's our reunion - I wanted to record it thinking it would be so damn cute and sweet, and it's pretty much true Vivian fashion.

She's been so sweet - handing me my drink from the coffee table, asking if I'm okay, giving me lots of gentle hugs. While it would have been somewhat easier for this to have happened when she was a bit older and could understand things a bit better, I'm glad it all happened when it did. I should be able to pick her up again by Christmas, so that's a nice timeline to have.

It's nice to know that she is capable of spending so much time away from me - but I'm not anxious to do it again! I miss that crazy face when she's not around.